Comments on: MUNGO JERRY – “Baby Jump”

By: Mark G

Mark G — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:33:28 +0000

I thought it was “Substitute” that Damon hated and Alex didn’t play on.

To the extent that it’s never appeared on any other release apart from the “Who Covers Who” album, and that Damon won’t even have it in the house!

It is better than “Maggie May” though.

By: andsayyoutried

andsayyoutried — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 12:50:25 +0000

I wish that had been the case wl, but as it was we had to make do with their take on ‘Maggie May’ – probably the most perfunctory runthrough on the entire album. They proved with ‘Substitute’ that they could “do” covers as well, so it was doubly disappointing. So much so Alex James refused to even appear on it.

Actually this does have a bit of a Seymour vibe to it, could see it shoehorned into a medley with ‘Fried’!

By: wichita lineman

wichita lineman — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 12:31:25 +0000

My way into this was K-Tel’s 40 Number One Hits , released in 1977. I don’t think I’ve EVER heard it on the radio.

I tried to convince Terry Staunton at NME that this should be the cover art for what became Ruby Trax. Shame!

Also, I wanted to bags covering Baby Jump for the comp, but was told that Blur already had. The conspiracy deepens.

By: andsayyoutried

andsayyoutried — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:12:59 +0000

The fact it didn’t take long – well, for those days – to reach the summit suggests that the postal strike may have plated a very large role indeed. Enough to keep the rancid ‘Another Day’ from the plateau anyway, which works for me.

By: andsayyoutried

andsayyoutried — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:06:00 +0000

I’ve never seen a list of Tad Doyle’s favourite songs, but if I did….

I’d go as far to say this is the filthiest – in many senses – number one of all time. I was going to put this one down to the ‘early part of the year’ effect, but that doesn’t really fit the end of February. Maybe a combination of the postal strike and it ‘being by the blokes who did that “Summertime” one’? Whatever, the most anonymous – and by that token, easily one of the most interesting – to ever hit the top.

By: Mark G

Mark G — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:21:02 +0000

Remember!

By: Stevie

Stevie — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:49:44 +0000

Sorry for the delay in commenting, but I loved this record at the time. Think it was the visual image conjured up by the words (“she wears those see through sweaters” etc) to an adolescent, but seeing it sung by Ray Dorset on TOTP made it seem rather pervy!

By: wichitalineman

wichitalineman — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:39:03 +0000

More kudos for the Mungos: Earl Brutus based their entire sound on Open Up (a 3-day week, mud-brown sound to rival Mouldy Old Dough); Alright Alright Alright, a re-write of Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi, was the only UK chart appearance by laconic chanteur Jacques Dutronc, aka Mr Francoise Hardy. Apparently the decisive factor in Francoise’s work with Blur in the nineties was Damon’s resemblance to the young Jacques. Her duet with Ray Dorset, a reworking of Bebe Jump, remains one of my idle daydreams.

By: angel70

angel70 — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:54:40 +0000

First this song was in the live-set of Mungo Jerry – who was 1971 in the Melody Maker Top 5 of the best live bands – just after the Stones!
The festival-goers loved it. So the band decided to release it as a single. And it worked – Mungo´s second No.1. As a young german guy I loved this song – and it was the first single I bought from my small money. The song was so different to all other tunes I heard from the radio. So wild, so catchy – for me it was perfect! A rock-song without drums – because the band used it´s first drummer one year later with the Blues-Single OPEN UP. Yes, Mungo Jerry used different styles of music!In The Summertime is jug-band music, Baby Jump and Alright Alright Alright are rock-numbers. LADY ROSE is a pop-song. And do not forget the single YOU DON´T HAVE TO BE IN THE ARMY TO FIGHT IN THE WAR! Great content and a hymh for the young european guys who want to do social work instead of going in the army. Ray Dorset, the band-leader, was winning 3 Ivor-Novello Awards (music-oscars) for penning differnt Mungo-songs!

By: fornetti

fornetti — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 02:45:31 +0000

I do not believe this

By: and everybody elses Mark G

and everybody elses Mark G — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:46:11 +0000

Oh, and about having fake reprises: So did “In the Summertime”

By: and everybody elses Mark G

and everybody elses Mark G — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:45:18 +0000

funnily enough, I thought about CCR when I heard “Baby Jump” soundtracking a bouncy castle yesterday.

Still, I think it’s yes obscure, but damn awesome.

The grimiest record to get to number one ever?

By: Waldo

Waldo — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:40:54 +0000

Marcello is right. Many has been the time when I’ve been discussing pop and rock with people of my age and older how so many simply don’t remember this topping the charts. An obscure Number One indeed.

I happen to think it’s a belter and the references to Lady Chatterley and Lolita are most amusing and should be taken in the tongue-in-cheek manor Ray Dorset intended them. Mungo Jerry, it must be remembered, were a fun band and “Baby Jump” is a busting little piece of honky tonk rock. Credence could have used it.

By: margothz

margothz — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 22:40:38 +0000

wow, you ppl just plain don’t really like Mungo Jerry music at all, huh? Sounds like to me, lol. Ok, so you don’t like this type of music.
The song ‘Baby Jump’ .. I like it. It sounds good. lol. It has a really good beat. I think it’s cute, lol. Then again, hmm, I guess it’s only because I’m female. dear god, oh well. hah hahhh…….
Their other songs are pretty good as well. Yeah, I’m just one person. I love music. Just my opinion. heh……
.. have a good one anyway people..
: )

By: Mark Grout

Mark Grout — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 09:58:36 +0000

Well, I like the godammn record.

ALso, this was another one of those “maxi-singles” where you got a b-side on the same side as the A, and a 15 minute “live” recording of two tracks on the actual b-side.

By: Doctor Mod

Doctor Mod — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:49:00 +0000

This song made no impression in the States, but I knew I knew it from somewhere. This morning I woke up remembering–it features in the background during a crucial scene in The Crying Game. All things considered, it takes on a whole new meaning in this context.

By: Marcello Carlin

Marcello Carlin — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 10:27:48 +0000

At Club Popular last night we agreed that this was perhaps the most obscure of all British number ones. It does, however, boast one of the best piano lines of all British number ones, so I’d be inclined to give it one out of ten just for that.

By: Chris Brown

Chris Brown — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 18:43:06 +0000

Although I’m British, this is well before my time, and so remains one of the declining number of chart-toppers I’m confident I’ve never heard (there’s certainly more than one to come, though).

This is the era when that postal strike precluded Record Retailer from compiling an album chart (Guinness books used to award Bridge Over Troubled Water an unbroken run across this period, but they were persuaded to use an alternative source in later editions). Maybe the postmen were picketing outside record shops and one person managed to scrape through and buy this. ;-)

By: Erithian

Erithian — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 14:18:40 +0000

I was just discussing this over a pint at lunchtime, and my friend recalled part of the lyric:

“She wears those see-through sweaters, she likes to wear her stockings black
And if I see her tonight, you can bet your life I’ll attack”

Could be part of the reason it doesn’t get played on oldies radio!

By: Dadaismus

Dadaismus — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 13:11:30 +0000

I don’t rememeber this song, or is it just the title i don’t recognise?

By: Doctor Casino

Doctor Casino — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 18:25:56 +0000

Worse, to rhyme with “Naaaaahbuhkov!”

By: Erithian

Erithian — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:33:38 +0000

Once again, it’s a subject we should really be discussing in nine Popular-years’ time, but re “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”, I’m prepared to believe that Sting had actually read “Lolita”. What stands out for me though is how the words “shake and cough” are crowbarred in to rhyme with “Nabokov” – a clunkingly awful rhyme of a kind you get quite often with Sting (see also “Russians”, “Walking On The Moon”, etc etc)

By: pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør

pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 11:58:51 +0000

perhaps it was (later to be outlawed) secondary picketing spilling over from the long-running anti-”Grandad” strike at EMI?

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 11:48:29 +0000

Wikipedia has dark mutterings about a postal strike which played merry hell with the charts around this time – I would like to believe that Baby Jump in fact got to #32 and had to be promoted to No.1 when data for all 31 hits above it were lost!

By: pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør

pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 11:09:22 +0000

to slightly defend sting here — not a stance i usually opt for!! — the line in “don’t stand so close to me” is one of a whole sequence of “unreliable narrator statements” from the switching perspectives (he’s describing a dodgy pupil-teacher relationship, a lot of it via statements which are intended to be SEEN THROUGH as the deluded or self-exculpatory positions of the teacher, at the same time as invoking the actual sense of damaging lust): so it’s at least arguable that the line “He starts to shake and cough/just like the old man in/that book by Nabakov” is the situation as described from HER perspective (viz she is teacher’s pet type kid feeling she is being hit on), and is thus (in principle) GOOD writing — bcz she is the type of pupil who MIGHT reach for a comparison in a book she’s just been studying

which is not to say sting can’t be MONUMENTALLY PRETENTIOUS at time — and may have been being so here also (i don’t actually think he pulls the device off properly — this line sequence in fact comes across more like objective POV than (as i’m suggesting it shd be heard as) harassed clever pupil POV: “It’s no use, he sees her/He starts to shake and cough/Just like the old man in/That book by Nabakov”)

i have a fondness for the “dark sting” period, where he wz takin the role of creepy pervs and makin them the “hero” of his pop hits